Page 2989 – The Source

Rainbow Six Vegas 2: Shootin’ em up Sin City style

Shawn WallbaumApril 9, 2008August 16, 2023

What happens in vegas stays in vegasHigh Rollers, Straight Shooters

The original "Rainbow Six: Vegas" is one of the best shooters to come out on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. A streamlining of the "Rainbow Six" style and a tighter and more contemporary game play engine made this a successful game. This also made it successful enough for a sequel. But like most great games with follow-ups, this could be a worthy successor or an over priced add-on to the original.

Culture

Ancient Gore: The Ruins plays the horror genre just right

Eric FlowersApril 9, 2008April 4, 2024

It wouldn’t be horror flick without the obligatory hot chicks.Yep, The Ruins gets ruined, taking a huge turn for the worse-for the characters, not the audience. I actually let it bypass my "despise-o-meter" entirely.
It starts off in a formulaic manner: the four main vacationing characters (med student, geek-girl, slut, surfer-dude) are all white, yuppified and overtly nauseating, making you wish they could be killed within seconds. But oddly enough, the director (first-timer Carter Smith) doesn't waste a bunch of time forcing these people down your throat and had the foresight to add some nudity almost immediately.

Culture

Paradise Gained and Lost: Welcome to (high tech) Fantasy Island

Eric FlowersApril 9, 2008January 28, 2024

Little Miss Sunshine goes tropical.Feeling the need to escape the desperate last gasp of winter, I decided to go to the one movie with the word "island" in its title. The film Nim's Island sets sail in the Pacific, stowing away somewhere near the Cook Islands in a tree house resembling a high tech version of the classic dwelling in Swiss Family Robinson. Surrounded by a tropical paradise (punctuated by the occasional storm), friendly animals and good books, I could have spent the entire 135 minutes there. Alas, such serenity soon dissolved as if it were a sandcastle.

Life on Nim's Island initially seems idyllic, and although there wouldn't be much of a story if it stayed that way, the film's identity clearly suffers from having two directors (Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin) and four screenwriters. It gets mired in at least three different genres; is it a cutesy adventure movie, a high tech/deserted island survival story, or the charming tale of a child who lives with her marine biologist dad while using her wits and imagination to create an exciting and richly self-sustaining life? The film is most successful when in the latter mode, wading in the turquoise waters of Nim's (Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine) imagination, while fending off the intermittent intruder.

Food & Drink

Whiskey 101: You don’t know Jack

Eric FlowersApril 9, 2008January 4, 2023

inside JD’s house. As a Southerner with Irish roots, I’ve always had a particular fondness for whiskey. In my neck of the woods, whiskey soothes the gums of teething babies. My family’s cough syrup consisted of whiskey and honey, in roughly equal parts. By the time I was seven, I had developed an appreciation for my father’s favorite cocktail: Seagram’s Seven and Seven-Up.

So, when I found out about the 9th Annual Whiskies of the World Expo in San Francisco, I signed up for a 2½ hour seminar called “Grain to Glass.”

Food & Drink

Whiskey 101: You don’t know Jack

Eric FlowersApril 9, 2008June 1, 2024

inside JD’s house. As a Southerner with Irish roots, I've always had a particular fondness for whiskey. In my neck of the woods, whiskey soothes the gums of teething babies. My family's cough syrup consisted of whiskey and honey, in roughly equal parts. By the time I was seven, I had developed an appreciation for my father's favorite cocktail: Seagram's Seven and Seven-Up.

So, when I found out about the 9th Annual Whiskies of the World Expo in San Francisco, I signed up for a 2½ hour seminar called "Grain to Glass."

Food & Drink

Brick Solid: Brickhouse adds to Redmond’s culinary bloom

Eric FlowersApril 9, 2008January 4, 2023

Hangin’ in the half shell at BrickhouseTastefully appointed in brick, dark wood and oversized oils, Redmond’s Brickhouse Steak and Raw Bar is located downtown on historic Sixth Street and has the urban-meets-rustic aesthetic that is perennially popular in Bend restaurants.

On my first trip, I sampled just the happy hour menu as I heard it featured one-dollar raw oysters on the half shell. Show me a cheap oyster and I’ll show you a happy diner. Oftentimes when oysters are offered for discount prices there is no choice as to which type you will get and the less expensive oysters are usually served. I was expecting something generic like the ubiquitous Blue Points.

Food & Drink

Brick Solid: Brickhouse adds to Redmond’s culinary bloom

Eric FlowersApril 9, 2008July 4, 2025

On my first trip, I sampled just the happy hour menu as I heard it featured one-dollar raw oysters on the half shell. Show me a cheap oyster and I'll show you a happy diner. Oftentimes when oysters are offered for discount prices there is no choice as to which type you will get and the less expensive oysters are usually served. I was expecting something generic like the ubiquitous Blue Points.

Music

4 Peaks Gets Bigger, Better; Modest Mouse Re-Announced

Mike BookeyApril 9, 2008September 19, 2023

4 peaks 2008: more people, more tents, more acres, more bands, more tie dye.OK, so we got an inch or so of snow in this, the second week of April, but with the mercury finally climbing, it's high time you to start planning your summer outdoor music schedule.

The 4 Peaks Music Festival announced its lineup last week for its July 25-26 event, as well as the fact that their local festival grounds have nearly quadrupled in size with the addition of expanded camping area. The initial lineup, which festival organizers say will likely grow as the date nears, already rivals last year's roster with emerging Bay-Area soul-jammers Tea Leaf Green, String Cheese Incident descendants Zilla, as well as returning bluegrass stars Hot Buttered Rum and Seattle's Flowmotion leading the way. Also on the bill: sudden Bend favorite Poor Man's Whiskey, Matt Butter & S.E.E., local heroes Moon Mountain Ramblers, State of Jefferson and more.

Music

Movie Star to Throwback Pop Star

Eric FlowersApril 9, 2008May 18, 2025

She & Him
Volume One
Merge Records
Volume One is the debut album and collaboration of indie film favorite Zooey Deschanel (Almost Famous, Elf) and guitar-folk musician M. Ward. The pair met while collaborating on a cover of Richard and Linda Thompson's "When I Get to the Border" for the soundtrack of the film The Go-Getter. After years of secretly creating home mix tapes of her songs and performing a cabaret act of jazz standards, Deschanel felt she had met the right person to collaborate with in M. Ward.

Music

Old Timey Delight: The Wiyos are so dang crackerjack, ya see!

Mike BookeyApril 9, 2008August 16, 2023

What did you expect? A color photo?Perhaps the most fitting way to describe the Wiyos, a trio of Brooklyn old-time music specialists, is as follows:
"Hey there, mac. These wild boys of the Wiyos, are real crackerjack wiz kids, ya see. They play the swing and the jive and the rest of it like a real barrel full of bullies, they do. They're sweeter than rhubarb and hotter than the temper on a redheaded Irishman, ya see, mac. They toot and strum and really just keep it dandy, and you can take that right to the bank there sports fan."
That, as you may have guessed, was my best impression of how I've always imagined the average 1930s journalist spoke (gleaned mainly from the few Ruth-area, hardly intelligible baseball game radio broadcasts that I've heard in snippets on ESPN Classic). The Wiyos are not from that era, but they do damn good job of making music that might convince some they were post-Depression troubadours clicking a washboard and plucking a washtub bass on a street corner asking only for pennies and spare johnnycakes.

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